


And Matt Makes Three (The Dooleys and Me?)

by gravityinglass



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, but no i guess if you're a teebagy it might be a relief, did you know kat's maiden name was teebagy, i still can't believe there are people out there with the surname teebagy, i would have thought changing your name to dooley would be tramautic, jeremy and kat try to convince matt to date them, matt doesn't notice for like six months, matt is a nerd with a crush on jeremy, matt is an oblivious motherfucker, so the dooleys just start dating him, that's it that's the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 06:35:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7349728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gravityinglass/pseuds/gravityinglass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a general rule, Matt considered himself pretty good at this whole single guy life. He had an apartment that he mostly managed to keep in a non biohazard state, a working kitchen that he filled with TV dinners and junk food, and a cat who he’d trained to shit in the toilet instead of a box.</p><p>Sure, he couldn’t drive, and was probably going to die of malnutrition at some point in the next five years if diabetes didn’t get him first, but he hadn’t died yet, his cat was fluffy and beautiful, he had an awesome job and great friends. Single guy adulthood was going amazing.</p><p>Except for the fact where he was kind of in love with his closest coworker. Who was kind of his best friend in Austin. And who happened to be married. To a really fantastic girl. That was a thing.</p><p>--</p><p>Or Matt is in love with Kat and Jeremy, and it takes him a stupidly long time to realize that they love him back.</p><p>AKA the happy ot3 you never knew you needed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Matt Makes Three (The Dooleys and Me?)

**Author's Note:**

> Notes! A few things: While I watch AH videos, I’ve fallen drastically behind over the past few months and always was a casual viewer anyways. As a result, all of AH’s jobs have been drastically simplified. I know that Matt and Jeremy are often on the stream team together, but for the purposes of this fic, Matt is largely build team in Minecraft and an editor, and Jeremy is part of the main crew. 
> 
> Second note: Jeremy and Kat had not yet adopted their third cat when I started writing this, and I didn’t want to go back and add that third cat, bringing the cat count in this fic to four, which is, even for me, too many cats to keep track of. 
> 
> Third note: I’m mostly sure the Dooleys are not polyamorous (because modern society largely isn’t), and I’m mostly sure Matt is not romantically or sexually attracted to any of the Dooleys. A girl can dream, though. And a girl can write fic about fan interpretations of real people, without casting aspersions on those real people.
> 
> Lastly! This fic is by a fan, for fans. It is not written for anyone in AH or RT. Sharing this fic with AH/RT employees or affiliates will result in a very disgruntled author, and will probably give fandom a bad name. Again. Please don’t do that. If you reading this are affiliated with AH/RT, please click out now. I do not give permission for this fic to be shared on other sites, including but not limited to: tumblr, twitter, youtube, the RT site, the AH site, and/or any sites affiliated with AH and RT.

As a general rule, Matt considered himself pretty good at this whole single guy life. He had an apartment that he mostly managed to keep in a non biohazard state, a working kitchen that he filled with TV dinners and junk food, and a cat who he’d trained to shit in the toilet instead of a box.

Sure, he couldn’t drive, and was probably going to die of malnutrition at some point in the next five years if diabetes didn’t get him first, but he hadn’t died yet, his cat was fluffy and beautiful, he had an awesome job and great friends. Single guy adulthood was going amazing.

Except for the fact where he was kind of in love with his closest coworker. Who was kind of his best friend in Austin. And who happened to be married. To a really fantastic girl. That was a thing.

“I’m not pathetic, Arya, am I?” he asked his cat, who was carefully grooming his hair. He should probably stop lying on the carpet in the living room. He’d never vacuumed, so it was full of cat fur, and now his hair was full of cat saliva too.

Arya mrrpd. Matt thunked his head back down onto the carpet.

“Glad to know you’re so helpful, Arya.”

She just purred and settled onto the small of his back, where she kneaded and then thumped her own head between his shoulder blades. Matt resigned himself to sleeping on the floor.

Matt woke the next morning to Jeremy staring down at him. He shrieked and flailed, dislodging Arya from his back. She stalked off, disappearing into the bathroom. Probably to shit in the toilet, like a well trained Arya.

“Why are you sleeping on the floor?” Jeremy asked. His arms were folded over his chest. They were extra muscley looking like that. Matt’s arms just looked like noodles. “Thank you?”

“Did I say that out loud?”

Jeremey looked way too fucking amused when he said “yes Matt, that was out loud.”

“Well, shit.” Matt pushed himself up to sit. “What’re you doing in my house?”

“It’s 9:30 and I’ve been waiting to carpool you to work for like half an hour. I thought I should make sure you’re not, like, dead, or some shit. Which brings us back to my first question: why are you sleeping on the floor?’

“Arya was having a life crisis about being a single lady,” Matt said, and paused his sentence long enough that he and Jeremy could sing the chorus. Jeremy even did part of the dance. “I was reassuring her.”

Jeremy raised an eyebrow. “I have two gentlemen cats she is welcome to meet at any time.”

“Absolutely not, Arya is never dating anyone ever.”

“I thought you said she was having a crisis?”

“She was, I wasn’t.” Matt pulled himself to his feet. “Do I have time to change or I have to do the walk of shame into AH this morning?”

“Everyone knows your walk of shames only happen after you’ve been talking to your cat again,” Jeremy said. “Go change, you heathen.” He paused. “You know, I’m not sure if Booker and Scooter aren’t gay--”

“You chopped off their balls, I don’t think they’re _anything_.”

“Yeah, but you haven’t seen them sniff each other’s butts.”

“I have indeed, you liar. Can I go change now?”

“I’m not stopping you.” Jeremy leaned against the wall and leered a little.

Matt suddenly felt the need to cross his arms over his chest, even though a) he was wearing a shirt, and b) there wasn’t exactly much there to leer at.

They ended up getting into the office an hour late, but it's one of those weeks where literally only a third of the AH crew is in, so no one actually cared. They'll just stay a little late this evening. It's what everyone does.

Trevor leaned over his computer monitor when they strolled in. "So whose fault is this unfuckingbelievable lateness?"

Jeremy shrugged.

Matt stared Trevor down. "There were dragons on 35," he said baldly.

Trevor sighed, looking rather like he wanted to list all of Matt’s poor life choices. "No, seriously, Steffie and I have a bet going."

"Matt was consoling Arya over her life as a single lady cat," Jeremy said, and plopped into Lindsay's seat. "I can work in here today, right?"

"What, you lonely in the big office?"

"Sometimes it sucks to be the best."

"Fuck you," Matt said, without heat. He missed sitting next to Jeremy sometimes, but this way he was less prone to daydreaming about Jeremy's laugh. Or at least he was less prone to getting caught.

"So it was Matt's fault?"

"For a given definition of fault, sure," Matt snapped off, and flumped into his seat. It rolled backwards into the wall.

"Well, fuck," Trevor said. "Steffie! You win!"

Steffie popped out from the storage closet. "Really? Sweet."

"Your crown is already in my Amazon cart." Trevor threw a crumpled up sheet of yellow legal paper at Matt. "You dipshit, you just made me buy Steffie a crown."

"To be fair, Steffie deserves all the crowns."

"Shut up, Jeremy."

"You should know not to bet against Steffie by now."

"Shut up, Matt."

Jeremy met Matt's eyes with a crooked and smug grin, then opened his mouth to needle Trevor again. Trevor, of course, noticed, and snapped.

"No, we're done, shut up both of you, go back to your room of loneliness, fuck both of you with a rusty goddamn shovel."

"Who are we fucking? Do I need to get shovels out of the prop shed?" Adam asked, leaning around the door frame. "Hey, Dooley, we need you for the thing in the place."

"Very specific, Adam, thank you," Jeremy said but heaved himself up out of Lindsay's chair. "Do they need me at the time with the stuff too?"

"Probably not, but it never hurts to be prepared," Adam said cheerfully, and vanished. Jeremy followed, waving goodbye to everyone on the B Team.

"Your crush can be seen from Mars," Trevor informed Matt, who flipped everyone in the room off and booted his computer. “Flipping me off helps no one. Doesn’t make him realize how much you luuuurrrvvee him.”

“I do not lurrrrveee him.”

“No, you just have a ridiculous crush on him.”

“I do not.”

“Are you really just going to sit there and lie to our faces?”

Matt gave Trevor a deadpan look. “Absolutely.”

\--

Matt wasn’t necessarily the fastest at catching onto things, he knew that. He hadn’t caught a whiff of AH wanting to hire them full-time, even when everyone insisted it had been pretty obvious. He always missed jokes the first time around, so he cultivated that and became the straight man for everyone else to play their jokes off of.

So when Jeremy started flirting, Matt was convinced he’d missed some kind of joke. Either that, or Jeremy had always been kind of jokingly flirty, and Matt had missed it entirely.

It was probably a joke.

It started with little donuts being left on Matt’s desk. They were heart-shaped, but it was near Valentine’s day. Everything was heart shaped in early February, even the TV dinner Matt had heated up the night before.

The donuts were really good, so Matt ate them and tried not to read into it.

Even if Trevor was giving Matt hell and an ulcer about his secret admirer.

“Whoever left them must have a crush,” Trevor teased. “Heart-shaped donuts for Valentine’s Day? Definitely love.”

“Or they know I like donuts and all the cheesecake ones are heart-shaped this year?” Matt suggested.

“This year?”

“This time of year. Whatever. You knew what I meant.”

Trevor rolled his eyes so hard Matt could practically hear them moving around in Trevor’s skull. “Secret admirer.”

“Definitely not.”

“You’re definitely in denial.”

“River in Egypt, lovely this time of year,” Matt deadpanned, and put on his noise cancelling headphones. Geoff’s most recent Minecraft idea included a ridiculous build, and Matt worked better if he couldn’t hear Jeremy’s laughter drifting in from the next room through the open door.”

Matt was one of the last people in the main office that day. He didn’t get up for lunch, instead giving Lindsay money and working while waiting for her to return with food. He ate in between building, completely in the zone. Once he got into the groove, it was difficult to dislodge him.

In fact, at the end of the day, he only noticed that everyone else had left when the motion detector lights flicked off on him, unable to detect his thumbs moving on the sticks.

Matt stretched, then saved.

Soon after, Jeremy knocked. “Ready to go?”

“Figured I should pack up when the lights went out on me,” Matt admitted. “Gimme a min to get my stuff in my bag.”

“Take your time,” Jeremy said easily. “I have to clean the litter boxes when I get home, and I’m not looking forward to it.”

“You wouldn’t have that problem if you taught them to use the toilet, like I did with Arya.”

Matt felt eyes on his ass when he bent over to scoop up his backpack. He was probably imagining them.

“Oh, hey,” Jeremy said. “Did you like the donuts I left you?”

Matt choked a little. “That was you?”

“Yeah. Well, kind of. I asked Michael to grab them when he picked up kolaches this morning.”

“So the hearts were his idea of a joke? Man. Trevor thinks I have a secret admirer, so. Good thing it was Michael, so Lindsay can get Trevor to fuck off.”

“...yeah.”

Matt slid the last thing into his backpack, a hard drive containing two let's plays he wanted to take a crack at over the weekend.”

“Ready to go?”

“Yeah, whenever you are,” Matt said, and powered down his monitor, the last thing still on. “Litter box duty summons you, Jeremy.”

So that was kind of weird.

One day, Jeremy just followed Matt around with his guitar. Matt knew Jeremy had missed his instruments while Kat was moving their stuff down from Boston, so this was probably just an extension of that. Plus Kerry was filming it, so it was probably fanservice-y RT Life footage.

The background music was nice, so Matt didn’t say anything. Especially when Jeremy launched into the Skyrim theme while Matt edited yet another Minecraft video.

That was about when Trevor started laughing every time he saw Matt in the same area as Jeremy. Kdin was in on it too, bursting into hysterics whenever Matt crossed paths with her.

(Matt was still working on the pronouns thing. Sometimes he wondered if it was his flubs and hurried corrections that made Kdin switch departments, but considering the fact that she still came and hung out with them for lunch Matt was mostly sure that wasn’t the case. Kdin was still an asshole to Matt, but that was just Kdin’s personality, not because Matt had grown up in North Carolina and still got thrown by people being so open about identity and sexuality.)

There were other things too, like Jeremy always saving Matt a good seat whenever they had meetings, or Jeremy trying to open doors before Matt could get to them. Trevor insisted it was Jeremy having a massive, repressed crush.

Matt insisted it was just Jeremy being gentlemanly, which to be honest he probably was.

Then Jeremy started bringing extra lunches.

“Hey, Matt!” Jeremy leaned around the door into the B-team office. “I accidentally brought both my lunch and Kat’s today, and I don’t wanna throw it out. You want it?”

“Uh, sure?” Matt hit ctrl+s, then powered down his monitor. “Now?”

“Yeah, whenever you want.”

Kat’s lunch turned out to be taco salad, with a bottle of Japanese soda Matt had to press a marble into in order to open. Jeremy sat cross legged on top of one of the picnic tables outside, eating his own salad unconcernedly. His had a lot more avocado than Matt’s. Or, well, Kat’s.

Matt poked at his avocado, then shrugged and ate a slice in one bite. “Thanks for lunch.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Jeremy grinned, the kind of smile that made Matt wonder if his heart flutters were from a crush or from an impending coronary.

Jeremy did it again the next week, in a conversation that went almost identically.

“Hey, so Kat threw in an extra sandwich today? And I think this is her way of telling me to stop making tuna salad at three am.”

“This is my way of telling you to stop making tuna salad at 3 am, what the fuck,” Matt said, but cheerfully accepted the sandwich. He bought a coke from the vending machine down the hall and eyed the carrot sticks Jeremy handed him with suspicion. He was especially confused when Jeremy put peanut butter on them.

“You never had ants on a log?” Jeremy demanded, eyes wide. He grabbed one of his peanut butter and carrot sticks and almost shoved it into Matt’s mouth. “Come on, it’s the best snack ever--”

“The best snack ever is a pizza donut,” Matt countered, or tried to. It was really sticky peanut butter.

Jeremy scowled at him.

“Tomorrow I’m bringing a veggie wrap and you’re going to eat it all, because a pizza donut is not a worthy food.”

“It’s the worthiest,” Matt argued, and they were off into an argument. Matt did end up eating more of the weird carrot sticks.

It was just a normal occurrence after that. There would be a lunch mixup, usually Kat trying to send Jeremy a message or Jeremy being a clutterhead in the morning, until Jeremy didn’t even bother trying give an excuse.

Matt started feeling awkward about it when he realized he couldn’t remember how many times it had been.

“Okay, if you’re going to keep bringing me lunch, I have to start paying for it at least sometimes--” Matt started.

Jeremy shook his head. “Dude. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m gonna worry about it!”

“Well, don’t,” Jeremy said plainly, and changed the subject.

\--

Part of Matt really wanted to hate Kat Dooley. Part of him was really kind of in love with the way she kicked Jeremy’s ass at FIFA, and the rest of him was really confused at how pretty she was.

It was a Saturday afternoon, mid-winter. Austin never really got cold, but it did get chilly enough that Matt really preferred to be inside. Jeremy had invited Matt over for dinner, telling him to bring wine, and it had been the three of them and the Dooley’s cats.

If asked, Matt would say that Jeremy was the cat person of the pair, though Kat was certainly fond of wearing Scooter as a scarf.

Jeremy made mulled wine with the bottle of red wine Matt brought (he’d stared helplessly at the bottles in the ABC, before admitting defeat and texting his mom helplessly to ask what kind of wine was appropriate to bring), and they all got kind of drunk on hot cinnamony wine.

Then, Kat had challenged Matt to a game of FIFA (“It’s the only game I’m any good at, other than Mario,”) had been her excuse, and Matt had totally been planning to go easy on her until she wiped the floor with him.

“You next, Jer,” she said affectionately, handing her control over. Jeremy and Matt were a more even match, with Jeremy eeking out a victory; then Kat soundly kicked her husband’s ass.

Booker lay across the back of the couch, gently grooming Matt’s hair. If Matt were less comfortable and less tipsy, he probably would have nudged Booker away. As it was, he stayed put.

“Remember when you shaved your head?” Kat asked, while a replay of her most recent goal was playing. She kept making them watch her triumphs.

“Me, or Jeremy?”

Kat snorted. “Good question. Both of you, actually. But I meant you, Matt.”

“For ExtraLife? Yeah. Hard to forget.” Matt swallowed, and tried not to think of the other ExtraLife thing that had happened: Jeremy kissing Matt.

“I’m glad your hair’s grown out, it looks so much more like you.”

“Yeah?” Matt lifted his hand and touched his hair, curling down past his ears now. Booker mrped in indignation, and started grooming Matt’s hand too. “I never had it short as a kid.” Being drunk always made him kind of nostalgic.

“Really?”

“Come on, I’m from Carolina. Long hair plus beard equals menace to society. Plus I can never bother to get it cut, so.”

“It suits you.”

“Thanks.” Matt quieted, long enough to watch Kat deftly defend her goal. “I’d comment on your hair, but I’d probably say something horribly offensive by mistake.”

“Mm, maybe. Hey, have you realized of the people in this room, Matt has the best last name?”

“I take offense to that,” Jeremy said loudly.

“Explain,” Matt said, ignoring Jeremy’s protest.

“Bragg, Dooley, and Teebagy.”

“...Yeah, that’s fair.”

“Brooley. Teeley. Doobraggy. Teebragg.”

“Combining them doesn’t make any of them better,” Jeremy pointed out. “And to be fair, I’m glad your name was Teebagy. It would’ve been harder to convince you that Dooley was an okay surname.”

“Oh, honey,” Kat said, patting his cheek. “You are not wrong.”

Jeremy pouted, while Matt sniggered. The game went on, until: “this is such bullshit,” Jeremy grumbled, after a 6-0 loss to Kat.

“This is me taking revenge for all the evenings you’ve made me play Minecraft with you,” Kat said sweetly. “And you not knowing how sports works. Who’s next?”

“Not it,” Matt said. Jeremy just chucked the controller at him.

As they kept playing, Kat stretched out on the couch. She put her head in Jeremy’s lap, and her feet in Matt’s. That really confused Matt: he barely knew Kat, honestly.

But since the Dooleys were acting like this was completely normal, Matt figured this was how they acted with all their friends.

\--

Jeremy texted Matt that he would be home sick and couldn’t give Matt a ride into work, so Matt resigned himself to the hell that was Austin taxis, and texted Lindsay that he would probably be late. Lindsay's reply was a series of sad faces and angry emoticons. Matt was mostly sure she wasn't angry at him, but he was supposed to finish an LP due to be released that evening. Hopefully the taxi could find the RT offices this time.

He'd fed Arya and scoped her box, and had his jeans halfway up his legs when the door buzzer rang, completely taking him by surprise. He tripped over his jeans as he tried to answer it.

“Hello?” he asked suspiciously. The last time his buzzer rang at eight am and it wasn't his carpool to work, it was some really enthusiastic Mormons. Maybe Jehovah's Witnesses. Matt could never remember the difference, and anyways he wasn't in the mood to politely turn them down.

“Oh, good, Matt! I've got the right apartment. Are you ready to go?”

Matt looked down at himself. He only had his jeans and one sock on, and the jeans weren't buttoned. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Arya creep out of his bedroom with his other sock, probably to hide it in the dimensional void she hid the rest of his socks in.

“Um,” he said intelligently. “Who is this?”

“Oh! It's Kat. Dooley. Probably should've started with that. Are you ready?”

“Uh, I wasn't expecting you.”

“Jeremy didn't text you?”

“He said he was sick.”

“So you're not ready then? Right, I've got my eye on the Dunkin Donuts across street. See you in like fifteen minutes?”

“Sure,” Matt said blankly, and remained holding on to the receiver even after he heard Kat walk away, staring at the wall.

He stayed there until Arya head-butted his leg, entirely sockless, so that was another sock lost to the void. The apartment wasn't even that big, and he had no idea where she put them.

“Where did I go wrong?” He asked. “Why is Jeremy's wife taking me to work?”

Arya mrrped, then flopped onto her side. He crouched to scratch under the chin, before remembering he was shirtless.

“Oh, shit ,” he said, and bolted to his bedroom.

For some reason, the shirt he'd planned to wear suddenly wasn't good enough. He rifled through his laundry basket of clean clothes and wasn't happy with any of them, before realizing time was probably almost up. He threw on the original shirt, scrambled to find another sock and his belt, and almost forgot his laptop and shoes. On the way out the door he grabbed an oversized hoodie and barely remembered his phone, wallet, and keys.

Kat was leaning against Jeremy's car, wearing a hoodie and jeans. Her hair was in a messy ponytail, and she had two iced coffees in a tray, along with a greasy paper bag that smelled like eggs and sugar.

“Hi!” She said cheerfully. It figured Jeremy was married to a morning person. “Jer said you take your coffee the same way i do. Thank God it's warm enough for iced coffee, right?”

“Um, yeah.”

Matt ended up sitting shotgun with his backpack between his knees. Kat had gotten him a breakfast sandwich and a donut in addition to the coffee, and refused repayment.

“You can pay me back by buying next time,” she said. Matt was kind of concerned that she planned on a next time. Before he could reply, a new song switched into the top forty station Kat had playing and she turned up the volume to sing along. Despite himself, so did Matt.

They spent the rest of the ride alternately singing and chatting. Matt found himself more and more comfortable with her as time wore on.

If she was going to murder him and leave him in a ditch for having a crush on her husband, he figured she wouldn't have gotten him breakfast first.

“I always figured I'd live and die in Boston,” Kat said, merging off the freeway and onto the surface streets near Rooster Teeth. “But I'm really super glad we moved here. So much less snow, and Jeremy's super happy, and the people at my work are amazing.” She hung a right that would have made Matt spill his coffee if it hadn't had a lid.

“Arya and I like it too.”

“Arya? Oh, your cat! Anyways, I'm super glad we got to spend some time alone. Jeremy's been hogging you, and I'd love to spend more time with you. Oh, before I forget: your lunch is in the backseat. Just give Jer the Tupperware tomorrow or whenever he's back in.”

“You didn't have to-”

“Idiot,” Kat said fondly. “Jeremy does it because he likes you. He made me heart shaped sandwiches all the way up until he asked me out.”

Matt tried not to compare Jeremy bringing him lunch as a co worker to Jeremy bringing his future wife lunch in high school. It didn't really work, even though Matt knew Kat hadn't meant it that way.

“Anyways,” Kat continued. “I made it this morning, since there's no sense in spreading more germs. I make a killer taco salad.”

Matt wondered if it was the same taco salad Jeremy had brought the first time he'd given Matt lunch. Instead of asking, he just smiled awkwardly.

Heedless of Matt's discomfort, Kat bounded to another topic, which she chatted about until they reached Matt’s work.

“So are you going to work after this?” Matt asked, fumbling to carry his coffee and lunch while putting his hoodie on and slinging his backpack over his shoulder.

“Oh, no, I've got a half day. I'm gonna pick up some medicine and soup for Jeremy and then head home. Have a good day, okay? Text Jeremy if you haven't got a ride home, and I'll come get you.”

Before Matt could really process the fact that she'd driven an hour round trip just to get him to work, and she offered to do it again, she was pulling out of the lot.

When he walked into the office ten minutes early, Lindsay did a double take. “I thought you were gonna be late.”

“I thought so too.”

“Did you get a delorean taxi or something?”

“No, Kat drove me.”

“Kat _Dooley_?”

Matt shrugged, still shell shocked. “Yup.”

“How are you getting home?”

“I have no idea.”

Kat ended up giving Matt a ride home, and then did it again the next day when Jeremy was still sick.

Matt bought them both coffee.

\--

Then there was the movie incident. Matt thought he was going on a double date with the Dooleys and a friend of theirs--a girl Jeremy assured him was cute, with a wink--and Matt was awkward enough to actually agree.

When he showed up to the movie theatre, wearing a button down shirt and nice jeans, with an attempt at taming his hair, he was informed that the friend wasn’t going to show.

Jeremy was dressed like Matt. His shirt made his frame look even broader than it already was, and his pants showed off his ass wonderfully. Not that Matt was deliberately looking. Kat wore a lacy yellow sundress and a drapey white cardigan, and a pearl necklace, looking like she’d wandered out of the fifties. Or, well, a fifties pinup, if the amount of cleavage she was showing was anything to go by. Both of them looked amazing, and Matt immediately felt scrubby in comparison.

“Well, come on,” Kat said, linking her arm with his. “Let’s head in.”

“But--I can go home,” Matt said helplessly, already being dragged along. She was wearing heels, how was she getting enough traction to haul him along? “You guys can have a date.”

“And we can do that with you here,” Kat said firmly. “Jeremy, take his other arm.”

Matt at least managed to weasel into paying for all three tickets, even if he managed by stomping on Jeremy’s foot and elbowing Kat. Jeremy looked oddly triumphant about that, even as he bought a stupidly large bucket of popcorn.

Somehow, when they got to their seats, Matt ended up sitting in between Jeremy and Kat. When he realized, he tried to switch seats with one of them, but they both refused. Kat just put the popcorn bucket in Matt’s lap, and then rested her head on his shoulder, firmly lodging him in place. Jeremy slung his arm over Matt’s shoulder, playing with Kat’s hair.

The theatre was just cold, Matt reasoned, and he hadn’t worn a jacket. And obviously the Dooleys felt bad about their friend standing him up. They were just being nice.

And it was nice, snugged between Kat and Jeremy.

Then, they went to Six Flags together. Kat drove, Matt got shotgun (“Jeremy should get it--” “Fuck that, you’re the guest.” “No, seriously--” “Matt, sit your ass down.” “...alright then.”) and Jeremy sat in the back, DJing.

It was an amazing day.

It was only when Trevor and Kdin started teasing Matt about his date with Jeremy and Kat that Matt started overthinking it.

Yeah, it was a lot better than most of the dates Matt had ever been on. But it was just a day out with his two happily married friends, right? That didn’t make it a date, even if they did get tispy in the parking lot while they took a lunch break from roller coasters and tiltawhirls, even if Kat had smeared sunscreen over his face with gentle hands, even if Jeremy had kept one arm slung over Kat and one over Matt whenever they were waiting in line.

It was just friendship. Right?

\--

On one of Funhaus’ many visits to Austin, James sat down with Matt at lunch.

“Hi?” Matt said slowly, mouth full of cookie cake sandwiched with a piece of microwave pizza. Jeremy was somewhere with Michael and Lindsay, so Matt had gotten his own lunch at HEB with Ryan before Meg had grabbed Ryan for something-or-other.

“Have you ever heard of polyamory?” James said bluntly, then broke off a chunk of Matt’s cookie cake.

Matt choked. When he could breathe again, he said “isn’t that for Mormons and their million wives? And like, illegal, or whatever?”

“That’s polygamy.”

“Okay? Isn’t that what you said?”

James sighed. “Polyamory is when people love and are in a relationship with more than one person.”

Matt took another bite of cookie and stared at James, trying to figure out where this was going.

“Elyse and I are polyamorous.”

Matt choked again.

“If you’re asking me out, I’m gonna have to say no--”

“Oh, no,” James said, and laughed. “We’ve already got an Adam. You’re sweet, but we don’t need a Matt too.”

Matt briefly wondered which Adam they might mean, and decided not to ask.

“So...why tell me then?’

“Because it’s information you need,” he said cryptically, and left, having stolen most of Matt’s remaining cookie cake and having left a plastic tub of salad in its place.

It looked suspiciously like one of Jeremy’s tupperware containers.

\--

Matt’s friendship with the Dooleys just continued. Despite Kat carpooling Matt a few times, he never really hung out with her one on one, not nearly as much as he did with Jeremy.

One dark and stormy night, Matt was sprawled out on his couch, with Arya snoozing on his butt.

His phone rang, blaring the Jaws theme, which he should...probably change.

The caller ID said it was KDOOLZ, followed by three winky faces and a peach emoji, all of which Matt definitely did not put in himself.

“Hello?”

“I know this is silly,” Kat said in a rush. “But--Jeremy's in London, and I hate thunderstorms and our power’s out, and I jumped like eight miles when Scooter just rounded the corner earlier, so--oh, _shit_ , Booker just did it too, _fuck_ , I hate thunderstorms.”

Matt was still kind of confused. “Um, what can I do?”

“Could you come over? Bring Arya and spend the night please?”

Matt hesitated. “I don't have a car.”

“Shit, yeah, I--holy shit, Booker, shit--fuck, where was I? Shit, um. Can I come over then? I'll bring movies? I just--holy _fuck_ that was definitely a demon, holy shit--”

“Um--”

“Look, you're Jeremy's best friend, and we got along on carpools, and we can keep each other company and oh, fuck, there's someone in the house, shit, call 911--oh fuck oh fuck shit on me--wait, shit, that's Scooter again, _fuck me--_ ”

Matt hung up. He wasn't sure if Kat was really going to come over, but then he got a text from Jeremy about how happy he was that his boo and his boi were getting along so well.

Matt made a mental note to tell Jeremy he'd been spending way too much time with Michael.

Kat buzzed his apartment half an hour later.

Matt let her in, and when she got to his door, she had left a trail of puddles.

“I, uh, forgot my umbrella,” she said by way of explanation.

“You should--use my shower,” Matt said. “I’ve got some dry clothes you can use, or something.”

“You’re the best. I’d hug you, but then you’d get wet. Oh, hi, Arya!”

Arya, like a smart Arya who didn’t want to become dripping wet, ran for it. Kat sighed.

“Please tell me you’ve got hot water?”

“My power is not out, so. Yeah. Hot water.”

After leaving Kat in the bathroom with a clean towels (so what if it was a beach towel patterned with pineapples and also the only clean towel Matt had in the house, it was _clean_ ), Matt dug through his drawers and produced a comfortable pair of grey sweatpants and a bright yellow sweatshirt declaring that they should KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD, a welcome gift from Geoff, of all people. He had an unopened pack of boxers, so he figured he’d chuck a pair of those and some socks into the pile too.

He knocked on the bathroom door.

“Hey, Kat? I’m gonna leave clean clothes outside the door, okay? Arya might be sleeping on them when you get out, so just pick her up and move her. She’ll meow, but she won’t scratch or anything.”

“Thanks, Matty!” Kat called back, over the sound of the shower.

Matt sat on the couch, flicking through Netflix with Arya on his lap. After the guys had ribbed him about not paying enough attention to Arya, he’d made an effort to spend time with her more. He’d taught her how to shit in the toilet after that, and had taught her to fetch again. The cat tree in the corner of the living room had required more work (namely borrowing Jeremy for an afternoon; he wasn’t sure how he’d have tied the cat tree to the roof of his car and then carried it up three flights of stairs without Jeremy’s help), but Arya seemed to adore it.

She was gnawing on his knuckles when Kat left the bathroom. She was about Jeremy's height, decently shorter than Mat, so his sweatshirt and sweatpants were long on her. Her damp hair curled over her shoulders.

“I thought your hair was straight,” Matt blurted.

Kat made a face. “Yeah, I straighten it. When it curls, it frizzes, and with Austin thunderstorms, it _really_ frizzes.”

“It--it looks nice.”

“I distinctly remember you saying you weren’t ever going to comment on my hair,” Kat teased. “But thanks, I guess. Jerem says so too, but it’s just not my thing.”

Matt shrugged. “So, movies?”

“I brought every Adam Sandler movie I own.”

“Jesus god. You didn’t.”

“And I’ve got an Adam Sandler movie drinking game on my phone.”

“Okay, I can get on board with this.” Matt ducked into the kitchen and produced the bottle of vodka he kept in the freezer for really bad days.

“Is that bacon flavored? Oh my god that’s amazing, I love that.” Kat had a spread of five DVDs in front of her as Matt set down his novelty Pokemon shot glasses. “So, Jack & Jill, the Wedding Singer, Pixels--”

“I need to be super drunk to watch Pixels--”

“So Pixels first?”

“Pixels first.”

Despite himself, Matt knew he was rapidly getting more and more fucked. Kat and Jeremy probably his best friends in Austin, and he was quickly falling in love with both of them.

It just became part of the background radiation of Matt's life. He had already been pathetically in love with his stupidly sweet co-worker, who brought Matt lunch and drove him to work, and still laughed at all of Matt's flatly sarcastic jokes.

And then there was Kat, stupidly sweet Jeremy's stupidly sweet wife. Like, Matt would have expected to hate her, and he had for awhile. Expect now he couldn't and didn't, and was starting to like her as much as he did Jeremy. Which, shit.

\--

Working at Achievement Hunter was Matt’s dream job. Despite that, he still sometimes had hell weeks, where just. Everything that could go wrong did.

So what if Matt sometimes forgot to eat when he got stressed? So what if he spent a full thirty-six hours in the office, only going home when Adam Ellis threw him over his shoulder and hauled him out of the office. There were Let’s Plays to be edited, streams to be done, and Builds to be finished.

He would have finished that Let’s Build at home too, if Adam hadn’t confiscated his XboxOne too.

At least he’d gotten that automatic feeder for Arya, so she wasn’t trying to eat his face yet.

Matt was staring at his empty fridge, wondering what he could make with mayonnaise and four mozzarella sticks when someone banged on his door loud enough to make Arya bolt from the couch with a disgruntled yowl.

Matt went to answer the door, bringing his Kingdom Hearts replica keyblade with him.

He didn’t need it, though he held onto it as the Dooleys pushed past him into his apartment.

Kat looked at Matt’s living room: the plain white walls, the battered green couch, and the Arya fur everywhere and said, “no.”

Matt still wasn’t sure how Kat had gotten into his apartment, much less how she had the right to say anything about his living room. Granted, he’d fallen asleep on the couch two nights in a row and had blankets strewn everywhere from the night where he’d only gotten home long enough for a shower and an hour break, so he’d just stayed up, mainlining redbull and making a pillow fort.

Then there was the completely overturned cat tree (Matt still wasn’t sure how that had happened), and the overturned laundry basket that Matt had tried to fold in an effort to keep awake sometime around the third day without sleep and had just ended up knocking all over the living room when Arya jumped onto his shoulders.

“Right, do you own a vacuum?” she said, and when Matt just stared at her wide-eyed she shoved at Jeremy. “Start writing this down. Vacuum. Bleach? Do you have bleach? Windex? Put those on the list too, Jeremy.”

Jeremy obediently followed Kat as she went to find his entirely lacking amount of cleaning supplies without waiting for an answer.

So that was how Matt ended up at the HEB with Kat and Jeremy. Kat had a basket slung over her arm with basic cleaning supplies, and Jeremy was carrying a mop and a broom. Matt’s basket was halfway full of food that wasn’t TV dinners.

“We’ll stop at ours to get our vacuum,” Kat said. “Oh, and we can pick up all the Mad Max movies while we’re there. Jeremy still hasn’t seen them,” she said to Matt, sotto voce.

Jeremy just rolled his eyes, then put a carton of milk in Matt’s basket. “I haven’t seen most things.”

“Your cat is Arya, right? He hasn’t seen Game of Thrones either. Oh, should we bring Booker and Scooter too?”

Matt still wasn’t sure what was going on. “I haven’t slept in a couple of days,” he said. “I might be hallucinating.”

That just made Jeremy and Kat look even more worried, so he probably wasn’t hallucinating.

“Why didn’t you lead with that? Why did you just let us take you grocery shopping?” Jeremy asked.

“I think I’m like, forty percent Monster at this point. I’m good for like, six more hours.”

Jeremy seemed inclined to take Matt at his world--he’d had a hell week too--but Kat just took their baskets and the mop and marched them through the checkout lines.

Kat drove them home, and immediately tried to put Matt down for a nap.

“Seriously, I’ve got like--five and a half hours.”

“You’re gonna sleep, is what you’re gonna do.”

And, well. Matt was kind of tired, so. He slouched back on the couch and fell asleep with Arya on his chest and the Dooleys in his kitchen.

When he woke up, it was dark, so he’d slept for at least six hours. He rubbed at his eyes and went to see if the Dooleys were still there.

They were.

“Did you know you've got a pile of about forty socks under your sink?” Kat asked.

Matt stared at Arya, who had the courtesy to slink off in shame. “So that's where you've been hiding them!”

“There were also three decomposing mice and two tennis balls.”

“Why didn't you start with the mice?”

Jeremy shrugged. “I told Kat you've been bitching about your missing sock-void for months now.”

“I mostly want to know how she fit the tennis balls in her mouth.”

“Forget how, wonder _where-_ -I don’t have any tennis balls.” Matt rubbed the back of his neck. “Thanks for checking on me, I guess. Sorry I wasn’t great company.”

“No big,” Jeremy said, coming up to hug Matt, before going after Arya

“Anything for our boyfriend,” Kat added.

The room seemed to freeze. “Boyfriend?” Matt asked tentatively.

“We figured if flirting with you wasn’t working, we should just jump to dating you,” Kat explained. She had her sleeves shoved up and was chopping carrots like they hadn’t just dropped a bomb on Matt’s brain. “So we’re dating. This is date night. We were going to take you out to lunch and then bring you back to ours. Except then I saw the state of your fridge and got sad, and then you hadn’t slept for god knows how long, so. This became date night.”

“Kat doesn’t like me to call her a momma hen, but she’s a momma hen,” Jeremy called from the bedroom. He was playing chase with Arya, who was having none of it, especially when he’d produced kitty nail clippers. “She’s glaring at me now, isn’t she?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“I can make you sleep on the couch now that we’ve got a Matt.” Kat beamed sunnily, and started on another carrot. “Big spoon or little spoon?”

Matt was still a little gobsmacked. “Uh. Big spoon. Um, do I get a say in this whole dating thing?”

Jeremy suddenly poked his head in. He was cradling Arya upside down and had the clippers resting on her belly. She did not looked pleased to be in this situation.

“Well, yeah,” he said. “You don’t want to date us, we’ll drop the whole thing. But we really like you, and I know you like me, and I’m pretty sure you’ll like Kat almost more than you like me.”

“I think--this is a lot. I don’t know what I think.”

“Well, you’ve got time. No pressure on anything, but if you’re going to tell us to get the hell out of your house, please let me finish the pasta first. I’ve seen your TV dinners, and they make me seriously worried. Jeremy told me your eating habits were bad, but--”

“They’re not that bad!”

Jeremy was still holding Arya like a baby, which made his unimpressed glare a little less impressive. “Matt, your diet consists of sugar, sugar, carbohydrates, and sugar. Why do you think I started making an extra lunch every day?”

“You said you kept forgetting and brought Kat’s by mistake!”

“That was a lie. Oh, fuck.” Arya had freed herself and was making a run for it. She was headed for the couch, and Matt knew once she wedged herself under there she’d get stuck and cry pitifully until Matt tried to manhandle the couch off of her.

Usually Matt would try to catch her. Now he figured he’d just make Jeremy lift the couch.

Matt spent the next twenty minutes sitting at the kitchen table and processing the last six months, and how it could all be interpreted as datey boyfriend things.

He was lost in thought until Jeremy was sitting next to him and Matt realized there was a pot of pasta on the table and three bowls.

Kat chatted cheerfully about her work as Jeremy dished out pasta, and then it was quiet for a bit as they dug in.

“Hey, you didn’t put in too much salt!” Jeremy said to Kat, and then: “Matt, is your cat crying?”

“Probably,” Matt said, and took another bite of pasta. “She’s stuck under the couch.”

Jeremy brightened. “If she’s stuck I can trim her claws!” He bounded off, having retrieved the kitty nail clippers. The mournful cat wail that followed was incredibly apt.

Of course, that left Kat and Matt alone in the kitchen together.

“Are you--” Matt started, then sighed. “Nevermind.”

“No, ask me stuff.”

“Are you--are you really okay with sharing your--sharing Jeremy?”

Kat smiled. “Well--yeah.” She scooped up a bite of veggies with her fork, and nearly avoided dropping it off the side. “Remember your Minecraft builds with Jerem before you both started working here?”

“...yeah?”

“I was usually with Jeremy, off-mic, remember? I thought you were sweet, then. Then he came home with such a crush once you actually had met each other and I thought...well, I like him too. When we moved here, it seemed like an...opportunity, yeah?” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I am really okay with this. The question is...are you okay with it?”

They finished dinner in quiet, content companionship.

Jeremy and Matt settled down onto the couch while Kat darted off to the bathroom. Jeremy linked his fingers with Matt’s.

“We don’t want just a sex thing,” he said. “We want you to be our boyfriend, an equally important part of a three way relationship. So--will you have us?”

Matt considered it. A year ago, he’d have jumped at the chance to date Jeremy but balked at Kat’s presence. Now, he found the idea of having them both stunningly wonderful, better than the idea of having only one of them.

“Sharing is caring,” he quipped. “Yeah. Yes. Absolutely.”

“Oh my god,” Jeremy said, and kissed Matt.

Jeremy kissed sweet and slow, like he had the time in the world and didn't want to waste even a second of it anyways. Matt had kissed Jeremy before, in the RT extra life stream, but that had been quick and simple. This was entirely different, and Matt could feel it in his belly and toes.

Jeremy kept his hand respectfully on Matt's lower back, though that hardly mattered. Matt could feel their thighs pressed together, and the ticklish flutter of Jeremy's eyelashes.

“Oh,” Kat sighed, somewhere behind Matt. “Do I get a turn?”

Jeremy broke off, and sometime in the next breath, Matt gained a lapful of Kat. He _oofed_ in surprise.

Kat was giggling when she kissed him. Her kiss was harsher than Jeremy's, bolder. Her hand dipped down the back of Matt's jeans, groping him a little.

Matt still didn't know where to put his hands. He settled for tangling one in Kat’s hair, and gripping tight to Jeremy's hand with the other.

“Oh man,” Jeremy said, sounding almost dreamy. “ We're gonna seduce you so hard.”

And...well, Matt could totally work with that.

\--

“Someone get me a glass of water,” Kat demanded, gently biting into the flesh of Matt’s arm.

Matt in turn gently thumped Jeremy on the forehead. “Your wife, your problem,” he joked. “Get the lady some water.”

Kat popped her head up from behind Matt’s shoulder. “Yes, husband dear. I demand cuddles from Matt, and water from you. And then cuddles from you, but after the water.”

Jeremy rolled his eyes, but went.

“He’s a sweetheart,” Kat whispered, as if Matt didn’t already know. “He’s gonna come back with three, one for each of us.”

“No, Arya!” Jeremy yelped from outside their room. “No!”

“Did you hurt her?” Matt demanded, moving to sit up.

“She threw up on my shoes!”

“That is your fault,” Kat said sleepily, and stretched so she was lying on top of Matt. “You monopolized her human.”

“I’m going to introduce her to Booker and Scooter right the fuck now.”

“You’re not wearing pants,” Matt called, sharing a look with Kat.

“Nope, we’re going, right now.”

“With what shoes?”

“...fuck.”

Kat sighed. “Come back to bed, Jeremy. And bring the cat, for chrissakes. She needs to know her human hasn’t been mauled by a bear.”

“Okay, the screaming was not my fault.”

“No, yeah, that was me,” Jeremy said, looking altogether too pleased. He was holding Arya at an arm’s length. Matt was pretty sure that was one of the best things he’d ever seen. “Well. It was Matt screaming. I was just causing the screaming.”

\--

“This isn't gonna fuck up the office?” Lindsay asked.

“You and Michael haven't fucked up the office?” Jeremy retorted.

“No, but HR had a field day. They're gonna go nuts with you two.”

“Us three,” Matt corrected. Lindsay glared at him.

“Two of your work here. HR is gonna have a field day with the _two of you_.”

Matt was actually kind of okay with that, even if Margaret and not-bearded Jack in HR kind of terrified him. After all, he had a Jeremy now.

\--

As a general rule, Matt considered himself pretty good at this whole adult guy thing. He had an apartment that he mostly didn’t sleep in anymore, a working kitchen that he was slowly learning how to use without catching anything on fire, and a cat who he’d trained to shit in the toilet instead of a box. And two adopted surrogate cats who kind of loved her, so that was awesome too.

Sure, he couldn’t drive, but he had a boyfriend and a girlfriend who were happy to take him places, and he ha hadn’t died yet, his cat was fluffy and beautiful, he had an awesome job and great friends. Adulthood was definitely amazing.

Especially when you considered that he was completely in love with his coworker and best friend, and an amazing girl who worked as a vet, and all three of them loved each other more than Matt had ever dared to hope to dream of. That was a thing he was really proud of.

“Everything worked out pretty well, right Arya?” he asked his cat, who was carefully grooming herself in his lap. He gently rubbed between her ears, and she headbutted him back.

Arya mrrpd, then purred and settled further down onto his lap. Matt’s phone buzzed with a text from Kat, followed by a string of texts from Jeremy.

“Yeah, I think so too.”

\--

**Author's Note:**

> The Adam Sandler drinking game really exists. I don't recommend looking it up.  
> Come talk to me on tumblr at @satellitesandfallingstars! :)


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